I was allowed to harvest a lot of sage in my friends allotment garden late august. Got home with a huge bunch of it. Dried one part and made a kind of simple pesto with the rest.
A few times I have eaten a wonderful simple pasta dish in italian restaurants with I think just butter and fresh sage leaves.
Now I experimented making this sage pesto to keep in a glass in the fridge through the year to be able to hopefully produce magical pasta dishes now and then. And add a little extra to meats and perhaps certain vegetables. Sage has a strong taste and needs to be balanced.
I still have to experiment but I imagine the dried sage will make a stimulating tea (good for colds I heard) and I expect to use it in simmering casseroles, stews etc.
If you only want a small amount of pesto I think it gets better when using a mortar and pestle. However I had harvested a large amount so I made it in a food processor.
Pesto:
sage leaves, picked and sorted
a little salt
good olive oil
Mix the sage together with salt in the food processor, add some oil later and continue till you get a rather smooth looking paste.
Put into a clean jar. I left the jar on the kitchen table for a day to ‘set’, added a little more oil to cover and then stored it in the fridge.
Use just a little of the pesto at a time (it is powerful stuff) mix it with more oil, and add some crushed garlic or/and lemon.
With such a mix and a lot of roasted pine nuts we enjoyed a nice pasta meal.
Enjoy!
My friend’s allotment garden, where the sage grew.